Sir Charles Blois, 1st Baronet

Sir Charles Blois, 1st Baronet (14 September 1657 – 9 April 1738), of Grundisburgh Hall and Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, Suffolk, was a British Tory politician who sat in the English House of Commons and the House of Commons of Great Britain between 1695 and 1709.

Early life Charles was the son of Sir William Blois, of Grundisburgh Hall and his first wife Martha Brooke (died 1657), daughter of Sir Robert Brooke (1572–1646) of Cockfield Hall and his wife Elizabeth. However as his mother died very soon after his birth, Charles's father remarried to Jane Barnardiston (daughter of Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston (1588–1653) of Kedington, Suffolk), who had previous been married to Charles's uncle John Brooke, brother of Martha. Jane was therefore the only mother that he knew.

The principal heir to Cockfield Hall, his uncle Robert Brooke, died in 1669 in a bathing accident in the river Rhone in France. Charles's father Sir William Blois dying in 1676 (when Abigail Hodges, Sir William's sister, disputed the estate with Jane Blois, the relict), Charles married Mary Kemp, daughter of Sir Robert Kemp, 2nd Baronet, of Gissing Hall, Norfolk, on 11 May 1680. His grandmother, Elizabeth Brooke (having a life interest in Cockfield Hall), died there in 1683, and his aunt Mary Brooke (like Charles, a co-heir to the younger Robert Brooke) lived down to 1693. Having been created baronet in 1686, Charles succeeded to Cockfield Hall in 1693 and made his principal home there.

His sister Mary was the third wife of Sir Nevill Catlin and then wife of Sir Charles Turner, 1st Baronet.

Career Blois was an Alderman of Dunwich from 1685 and was appointed to the commission of the peace for Suffolk in 1685.

In 1693 Blois succeeded his aunt Mary Brooke to the Yoxford estate, which gave him an electoral interest at Dunwich. His wife Mary died in 1693 and he married as his second wife, by licence dated 18 April 1694, Anne Hawtrey, daughter of Ralph Hawtrey, MP of Eastcote House, Ruislip, Middlesex. He was defeated at Ipswich at the 1695 English general election and did not stand in 1698. By his first wife Mary, he had three sons, of whom two predeceased him, and a daughter. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his surviving son, Charles, later 3rd Baronet. By his second wife Anne, he had two sons (one of whom predeceased him) and a daughter Anne. The surviving son, Ralph, became the 4th Baronet.